I didn't seem to have the immense imaginative talent to write fiction though, so I wrote features instead.
I interviewed lots of people. Ordinary people doing extraordinary things at first. Then successful people - popstars and rockstars for the music magazine site I set up with my other half, then business leaders and a range of inspirational people for business magazines and how-to-start-and-grow-a-business type books.
I learned a lot about achievement and failure and persistence from these others.
But, from myself, I learned resilience.
When I was 17 years old, my darling mum died.
It hit me hard. How could/why would this happen?
Yet, somehow, I summoned my inner strength, picked myself up and I lived.
I realised then that life was short. Hers was. She was 43.
After I'd come up for air and worked through my grief (and turbo-powered teenage angst/guilt/rebellion) I decided that, I actually wanted to make the most of my life.
And so I stopped fopping around and raving on and sorted myself out.
I became my own boss, working from home, walking my dog in between writing features, websites and interviews.
A decade later, after pursuing and succeeding at my own dreams of becoming a free-range-author, I decided I wanted to help others to do the same; to live with intention and optimism; to make the most of their lives; like my mum had done and like my dad had just begun to do.